


make you feel

by rikacain



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Ghosts, non-con haunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 11:01:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikacain/pseuds/rikacain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's nothing wrong with him (except for cold, cold, cold).</p>
            </blockquote>





	make you feel

It starts with Bond. As far as Q knows, it starts with Bond.

A solid month after the Skyfall incident still sees Bond kept from active duty. The new M in charge may have respect for the previous M's judgment and decisions, but he cannot send Bond out until he is sure that Bond will carry out all missions and _survive_. It's not sentiment but a protection of sorts; protection of one of MI6's more valuable assets - protection, Q feels, which is entirely necessary as the man has a record of returning with a fresh set of scars to mark the completion of every mission, and destroying most of the Q-branch's gadgets given to him. They'll be ready to send him out when he's not as ready to die.

Rumour has it Bond loves and loved a woman deeply, once. She betrayed him for the boyfriend she has, she died and he still loved her because once you know love you can never let it go. Perhaps that's why, the employees of MI6 whisper when he's not around and it happens to be a tea break, that's why he's so eager to embrace death.

Q remembers the reviewing the footage of Raoul Silva and M's confrontation. 'Life clung to me like a disease', he had said. Perhaps Bond understands. Q does not dwell.

It starts with Bond because a month into just lurking around headquarters with absolutely nothing better to do, Bond comes to him one day. "Do you not feel cold at all," he had said.

"Not all of us are frequent visitors of tropical beaches, the sun and the sand," Q had replied. "Perhaps we're just used to it."

Bond had frowned at him. Q merely returns to his laptop - weapons to design, gadgets to procure, malfunctions to fix, the whole drill. The rest of the Q-branch looks inquisitively at Bond - the only man wearing a grey suit among all of their white lab coats. (Not counting Q, of course, but his cardigan is already considered a uniform of sorts to them.)

"007," Q had called after him just as the man makes up his mind to merely go find a spot of sunshine in grey old London. "I need you to look at this." Bond gives an irritated twitch but obeys nonetheless, striding over and looking over Q's shoulder at the monitor. Q opens up a folder and scrolls down to the file he wants, clicks.

Code flashes onto the screen and he wrangles the program into submission with a few quick presses on the keyboard before a text document finally opens and there is a list of names.

"What is this," Bond says.

"Raoul Silva had an empire," Q says softly. "These would be his subjects." His fingers tap gently on the table to a tune he had heard someone hum on the Tube, waiting for a response. Bond gives.

"Why are you showing this to me?"

"Incentive," and he shrugs. "For you to go back out into the field. "You're driving half of MI6 up the wall by lurking about like an overgrown bat, 007. I suggest you do something about your evaluation test." He closes the file and returns to his previous project, drawing white lines on blue and calculating specifics. "Just remember that there are missions for you to carry out for queen and country. England may not be falling now, but we could use you."

Bond gives him a sharp glance. "I'll think about it," he says slowly.

"That is all," Q says dismissively.

It starts with Bond because at that moment, something cold brushes against the back of Q's neck; it starts the moment he thinks he hears someone whisper, ' _impressive_ '.

But there is no one behind him, Q knows - so he watches Bond stride out of the room and wonders _when did the room get so cold_.

* * *

The next few days are mildly irritating - the whole entirety of Q-branch suddenly has a predilection for misplacing their pens, forgetting to place paperweights on the stack of papers they have to go through (which results in papers flying all over the place, to no one's amusement) and an unfortunate amount of employees unable to sit their arse properly on their chairs. Q has on occasion found his mug moved and chilled despite having placed the newly filled mug on his coaster on the far side of the table. He chalks it up to his losing track of time.

"It's almost like MI6 haunted," Harriet jokes, a well-aged lady who has been in Q-branch before Q had even known of it. No one says anything to that - they are men and women of science and technology, not slaves to superstition. Harriet chuckles to herself and sits down at her desk.

What happens next is entirely too fast, but perhaps Harriet's grip on the armrest of the chair slipped because the metal chair shoots out from beneath her and careens away into the wide expanse of space covered by thick wires, immediately crashing into Carlos' desk. Harriet herself is just as unlucky - she falls back, with the lack of a chair to take her weight and onto the floor, where she lies groaning. A moment of absolute silence reigns before people are scrambling to help her.

Q pauses from his typing, before raising his voice over the din. "Silence," he says, making sure his voice carried across the room, and the room gives it to him. "Gwen, Thomas - bring Harriet to the infirmary. The rest of you, back to work. Now," he adds emphatically after a bit of restless shifting. "We all understand your concern for a colleague, a friend - but we still have a job to do."

Order is restored as soon as it was disrupted, and Q finally returns his attention to the program he is working on. He reaches to take a sip of his tea, refilled mere minutes ago before Harriet's unfortunate fall.

The tea is ice cold and bitter on his tongue.

* * *

Q thinks he hears things nowadays, but he _knows_ it's a mere product of the brain. Some of the staff are shaken over Harriet's accident and goes as far as to adorn their working space with some crosses, holy water, or even a miniature statue. Upon sighting them, Q would raise an eyebrow and say nothing - the staff deserved their morale, he feels, and if they could provide a way to sustain that morale by themselves then Q has no argument to raise.

Ghosts don't exist. He reminds himself. They don't exist.

But Q hears things nonetheless, especially when he's cracking a particularly difficult code or hacking into the database of an enemy.

' _Clever boy_ ' something would sigh as he presses 'enter' and watches the program unfold itself before his eyes.

' _Try harder, darling_ ', tone mocking and cloy. He feels the chilling wind ruffling his hair, dipping down the back of his neck. He mistypes.

(Ghosts don't exist.)

No one notices.

* * *

There's a situation on hand and 004 is at the very heart of it, fighting his way out of Venice. Q is on the communications with him, guiding him through the waterways of the Italian city, looking out for the enemy's coordinates. It is only until three days later 004 is out of the country, safe and heading for London with the objective in his hand.

007 looks vaguely envious. Q does not ask why.

Instead, he decides to finish up the report for this particular fiasco. The room is often cold nowadays, but Q had checked the temperature and regardless of his tampering with the unit, it would not get any warmer. In the end, he resigns himself to wearing absurdly thick coats and jumpers that gives absolutely no degree of relief, and ignoring any looks he get. The situation was long and the report is longer, and by the end of the affair he simply sits back in a chair, tilts his head back and closes his eyes.

* * *

He is sitting in front of the memorial for every MI6 agent who has sacrificed themselves for the country. Tanner is looking down at him with something almost close to bemusement.

"You never struck me as a sentimental man, Q," he says, covering up the fact that he was confused as to why the Quartermaster was sitting, sleeping in front of the memorial. Q looks in front of him, at a name scratched out of the wall. The marks look recent enough.

"I'm not," he says, and cannot remember how he got there himself.

* * *

Bond finally gets his gear into shape and is cleared for active duty. Q is marginally happier. The man strides into Q-branch like he owns the place and demands for the first name, and Q gives it to him.

' _Falling my empire, brick by brick_ ,' someone whispers, amusement and wistfulness interwoven in his tone. Q takes a sip of tea from his vacuum flask (cold again, _how_ ) and sends Bond off with his blessings in the form of a communicator and the latest gun in issue.

' _London bridge is falling down_ ,' the same someone murmurs softly to him, ' _my fair lady_ '. Cold spreads down his neck, his shoulder, the side of his face like a lover's caress. Q shivers.

* * *

The room is always cold now.

* * *

Q finds himself in front of the memorial with no memory of how he gets there, always in front of the same erased name. More often than not, Tanner is hovering over him when he snaps awake. After a while, he always wakes up to find a blanket draped over him.

He drinks more (cold) tea. He makes sure he gets the maximum amount of sleep he could afford to offer. He sucks on an infinite amount of sour drops that would probably land him with a humongous cavity one day.

Each time he wakes up in front of the memorial, he feels like he's lost some game he didn't know he was playing in the first place.

* * *

"I didn't think you knew him," Tanner says, looking at his own names.

Q says, "I don't."

* * *

The cold gets worse.

It spreads from his neck and shoulder to his lower back, leaving a trail of goosebumps on his spine. The extra layers of clothing he dons does absolutely nothing to help. He often goes home with muscles stiff from cold even in the middle of summer, and uses heating pads generously during the wonderfully warm nights. He would dread the moment he re-enters headquarters, but can't bring himself to consider the cold as anything more than an annoyance. His job has grown on him far too much for that.

Monday heralds a meeting with M and the other department heads, a meeting that Q pays the minimum amount of attention he can spare. There's nothing much to do save for watching the respective heads engage in verbal war for more budgets, new policies and either brilliant, redundant or downright moronic ideas. Q has nothing to say - the only factor that makes his branch's budget explode is the destruction or loss of the equipment rendered to agents, and James Bond has yet to return to London. The other agents have a higher capability of returning their gadgets in one wholesome piece.

Someone tuts. ' _Enjoying the show?_ ' The cold on his neck starts again, inching down his nape. Q sits up and tilts his head back very slightly, trying to stave the shivers off. There's a whisper of a chuckle, and the sensation slides down his spine, curls around to his stomach and settles.

Q breathes in shakily, and looks at M, who seems to be saying something. The cold intensifies.

' _If you want to play it that way_ ,' sighs the air. Ice inches up his midriff, his chest, brushing over his heart and it's much harder to breathe with the cold and the thought that you might just be going mad, hearing voices that aren't (supposed to be) there -

"Q." M says. "Q, are you paying attention?"

He starts, and looks back at the rest of the heads. They all seem to be staring at him in a collective gaze of disapproval.

"I apologise, sir," he says and hides another shiver under layers of clothing. M returns to his topic of choice; Q returns to listening to him and thinking of people who claw at thin air, afraid of something they only see.

* * *

He leans forward and presses a thumb to the rough scratches, rubbing over it lightly. The stone is sharp and uneven on his skin, the name ever unclear.

He learns nothing.

* * *

Bond returns for the second name, the gun and radio nowhere in sight. He eyes the two cardigans and one scarf on Q with the slightest bit of curiosity Q has no interest in sating.

"Are you feeling ill," he asks.

Q shifts uncomfortably as a fresh set of shivers run down his back and around to his stomach. "Perhaps I'm just cold," he says, but he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he is feeling unwell. It seems very much plausible, save for the fact that he only gets the shivers when he's at work.

Bond raises an eyebrow. "I thought you said you were used to it," he says, amused.

Q bristles. "Perhaps I did. Aren't you cold yourself? I recall you complaining about it a while back."

The man shrugs but frowns. "I am now," he answers slowly, eyeing Q with suspicion. Q returns the frown with one of his own, and turns back to his screen.

* * *

He goes to the infirmary, just in case. There's nothing wrong with him (except for cold, cold, cold).

* * *

"Did you mess with the thermostat," Bond asks, mouth twisted down disapprovingly.

Q huffs, affronted. "I assure you that I have far better things to do than to decrease the temperature of the headquarters' environment just because you're around. And if I ever was inclined to do so, don't you think I would turn the temperature up?"

Bond nods warily, but seems to accept the explanation nonetheless. Q hands him his new equipment. "Vincent Nguyen," he tells him. "Vietnam. Do try to return the equipment in one piece," and Q watches as the warning sails smoothly over the agent's head.

Bond leaves the next day. His shoulder numbs as he watches Agent 007 go.

* * *

"I suppose you knew him as Tiago Rodriguez," Tanner says, his statement poised as a question as he lights up a fag. He smokes once, every day in front of the wall, in a show of reminiscence, respect. Q doesn't bother to correct him; he closes his eyes, testing the name. It sounds vaguely familiar.

Tiago.

* * *

He does not look for records of Tiago Rodriguez, choosing to preoccupy himself with the next mission and the missions after instead, carried out accordingly by their respective agents. He is kept in the headquarters for almost up to a week, pulling long hours that stretched well into the day. Whenever he is forced away from his computer ("Jack can cover for you," Surin insists, pulling him firmly by his arm to the waiting area in the infirmary), he sleeps for an hour or two compared to the usual three hours timing he gives himself, before waking back up and rejoining the mission, wherever it had amounted up to now.

The usual is not being given, because now he has fucking _nightmares_.

They're cold and dark and something is touching him and black ice everywhere, on his body on his face his eyes and creeping down, down to his thighs and legs and even slipping into the cleft of his arse. That's when he usually wrenches himself awake, the phantom touch still lingering across his skin.

(There's always a shadowy figure that he can see out of the corner of his eyes, with bright ( _blue but the shade he knows_ (he wants) _is off, it's off_ ) eyes and white pearly teeth sharp and curled up into a Cheshire smile.)

* * *

"I think you need to take a leave of absence, Q," Eve tells him, worry almost creasing lines on her face.

Q, the stubborn bastard he finds himself to be, does not listen.

* * *

New equipment means new testing runs, and the latest tech in stock happened to involve thermal recognition. Q runs the usual test, checking its calibration; and because he actually needs about a ten months' worth leave of absence due to the overtime he's been clocking in, his hand slips. The sensor drops, aims itself at him and he swears briefly before registering the anomaly in his data.

His temperature is definitely lower than the normal thermal reading of an average individual, but what he's most concerned ( _alarmed_ ) about is the intense block of blue behind him, shaped vaguely like a human.

(Ghosts don't exist.)

' _Hello, hello_ ,' something purrs into his ears -

Tiago. Tiago Rodriguez.

_Rogue agent; the MI6 going up into flames as the explosion shook the foundations of the building over his very head -_

Raoul Silva.

* * *

"You're not real," Q says.

"You can't be real," Q says.

"Please don't be real," Q does not say.

* * *

It comes to a head here - like a lamp low on its oil, Raoul Silva flickers into existence. The locking mechanism sounds from the door and Q has a feeling ( _knows_ ) that if he tries it, it will not open. Q will not be out of this room until Silva wants him to.

Being a ghost does not do Silva any favours - although he looks very much like when Q first saw him, in the glass cage and through a surveillance camera; the pallor on his face, the knife sticking out of his back and his eyes, hard and hungry, cements the fact that Q is seeing a ghost. Or a hallucination. Q is still hoping for the latter.

' _Q_ ,' Silva says and no, this is not a dream.

"Silva," Q replies, and is proud of how calm and detached he feels. "Or would you prefer Tiago, considering the many times I've woken up at the memorial? That was you, wasn't it."

' _It was_ ,' Silva confirms. ' _Neat little trick - apparently your living souls are easier to control when you're almost asleep._ '

Q ignores the minor jibe. "What do you want?"

The ghost spreads his hands. ' _Nothing_ ,' he says cheerfully. Too cheerfully. ' _What could someone dead possibly want? Life clings to me like a disease - or the afterlife, in this case_.'

"Haunt Bond then," Q tells him. "Don't bother me."

( _Do you not feel cold at all?_ )

' _You don't seem to be in the position to be giving orders_ ,' Silva observes.

"You don't seem to be in the position of making demands," Q shoots back. "You're dead, Tiago or Raoul or whichever name you choose, and you can't touch me or anything else. You'll be nothing more than a nuisance that makes the room temperature colder than it has to be, the Bogeyman that gives any MI6 employee that decides to take a nap in the middle of work nightmares. You're a ghost. You can't do anything to anyone, save for rot away in this establishment you never got close to bringing down - "

' _That's quite enough, boy_ ,' Silva hisses into his face all too suddenly and Q takes a sharp breath in. The table is hard against the back of his spine and he can feel the faintest trace of fear curling in his gut. The ghost trails a hand down his face and Q shudders to remember all those chilling touches, a mockery of a warm embrace. ' _I found you interesting, so young and so very dangerous. To think that someone like you is working for Mummy, for Mummy's replacement, is such a waste of talent. You could raise empires, fall them with a click of your fingers -_ '

"Or continue them," Q realises with increasing dread, "an heir to your throne - " and this is why he's been in front of the memorials, this is why his defences are being worn down and chipped away at over the months -

' _Clever, clever boy,'_ Silva croons. _'A shiny gold star for you._ '

"No," Q says, "no, I'm not going to do it."

And at this refusal Silva's mouth curls up into a smile. In death, he does not have his fake teeth. ' _You're not given an option, dear boy_ ,' he says, and suddenly his hands are flying forward and Q is thrown against the wall, blinking back stars from the impact. Silva floats over and crouches down in front of him, stroking his hair. ' _I don't want to mess your pretty face up too much, so the faster you let me in..._ '

"N-no," Q repeats. "No."

Silva gives him a sad smile before materialising a strong grip in his hair that Q lets out a whimper at. ' _A shame, pet. Truly a shame._ '

* * *

In the end, Q does not go out with the damage he once promised, the damage he could deal in his pyjamas before his first cup of Earl Grey in the morning. In the end, Q is standing on a lake frozen over by ice. The ice cracks and Q falls, falls into cold icy darkness too suddenly and too slowly at the same time.

He moans something unintelligible as he lies against the cold concrete floor of the testing chamber, bruised and heavy-limbed. Silva settles next to him, his hand settling into a rhythm Q feels as it cards through his hair.

' _Yes_ ,' Silva smiles, cold and fond. ' _Goodbye._ '

* * *

"Finally fixed the bloody temperature, I see," James says loudly as he walks down the space. Q stands before him, eyes on his computer and with only one cardigan this time around.

"007," Q says, not even looking up to acknowledge him. "How was your mission?"

"I took out the entirety of his section," he replies. "They won't be making bombs anytime soon." He stops in front of Q, watching the quartermaster closely - there is a feeling of something wrong, something he can't quite place his finger on. "Q."

"007," Q replies, still engrossed in whatever was on the screen. At a closer look, his skin seemed to be tinged with blue, too pale for hale and healthy. His eyes look alarmingly vacant, like a victim of shell shock, but his fingers are as fast as ever, flying over the keyboard.

This is Q-branch, James reminds himself. And the least likely person to ever get compromised is the man standing in front of him. There's no good reason for Q to look like a survivor of a horrific war.

He suddenly pulls out the text document James had seen before. "I hazard you would want the next name. Alice McKenzie, Peru. Please see Jack," and he waves jerkily at some employee or another in the room, "for replacement of any of your destroyed equipment."

He's still not looking at James. James finds this very disconcerting.

"007? Are you waiting for the cows to come home?" A smile curls around the edge of Q's lips, but there's something wrong with that too.

"Right," James say slowly, testing. "Why can't you give me the equipment yourself?"

The fingers pause and tense for a while. "I believe there is this concept you may be aware of," Q enunciates slowly ( _too smooth, too mocking_ ). "It's called 'busy'."

"Point."

"Yes, Bond. Now go find Jack."

James eyes him with some amount of bemusement before turning around to find this 'Jack'. Jack is all the way at the other end of the room, where the glass walls are reflecting the room's occupant back at James. He takes a moment to adjust his suit slightly, another to tug at his tie.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Q in the reflection, standing tall at his table. What he isn't supposed to see is someone standing just behind him, one indistinct arm around Q's stomach and the other stroking down his thigh. Whoever it is has his head tucked into the crook of Q's neck, whispering to him.

James turns around.

No one is there.

* * *

( _Goodbye, James._ )

**Author's Note:**

> This story really ran away with me. The title is from the song 'Make You Feel My Love' except there's no love here so 'My Love' is cut off.
> 
> Concrit appreciated. Thank you.


End file.
